The central bank of Bangladesh lost $81M in a digital heist whose perpetrators have not been caught, thanks in large part to the bank’s decision to run its computers without a firewall, and to run networking with second-hand cheapie routers it sourced for $10 each. (more…)
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Hackers take $81M from Bangladesh’s central bank by pwning its $10 second-hand routers
Microsoft posted revenue of $20.5 billion in the third quarter of its 2016 financial year, down 6 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Operating income was $5.3 billion, a 20 percent drop, net income was $3.8 billion, down 25 percent, and earnings per share were $0.47, a 23 percent decline. Over the past few quarters, Microsoft and other tech companies have reported significant impact from the high value of the US dollar, and have offered equivalent financial figures that show what their numbers would have been had the value of foreign earnings not been eroded by this conversion. This currency impact was estimated as reducing revenue by about $0.8 billion. The company also reports that there was a $1.5 billion impact from a combination of revenue deferrals due to Windows 10 upgrades and restructuring charges. Excluding this impact, and assuming constant currency values, the company says that its revenue was $22.1 billion (up 5 percent), operating income was $6.8 billion (up 10 percent), and net income was $5.0 billion (up 6 percent). The commercial cloud annualized revenue run rate—the forecast number that former Steve Ballmer dismissed as ” bullshit “—crept up to $10.0 billion; three months ago, it was estimated at $9.4 billion. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Office up, Surface up, cloud booming in Microsoft’s $20.5 billion quarter
Lacking a decent keyboard for password entry, it’s tricky to secure a wearable computer so that someone else can’t just put it on and access your private files. But researchers have come up with a better alternative , by listening to the unique sound of the wearer’s skull. Read more…
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You’ll Never Forget Your Password When It’s the Sound Your Skull Makes
Let’s be honest, most concept videos suck. They show you an imaginary device that looks nothing like the final product and defy the laws of physics. But some software concept videos tick all the right boxes, like this one from MacStories. Federico Viticci and Sam Beckett teamed up to create the following iOS 10 concept video. It’s a beautified wish list for the upcoming release of iOS. Read More
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Here are some great improvements that should be in iOS 10
(credit: Spanish Coches ) In San Francisco this morning, US District Judge Charles Breyer said Volkswagen Group would buy back nearly 500,000 2.0L diesel vehicles which were discovered in September to have software that illegally disabled the emissions control system during normal driving conditions. VW Group is facing some 600 lawsuits that Judge Breyer is overseeing collectively, and the German automaker was compelled by court order to present a plan for fixing the faulty vehicles by today. Specifics of the plan will be hammered out in the coming months. Volkswagen will also set up a fund for people who bought certain diesel Jettas, Golfs, Passats, Beetles, and Audi A3s after 2009. Breyer said this would offer customers “substantial compensation,” on top of the car buyback . Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Volkswagen makes it official—it’s buying back 500,000 2.0L diesels
(credit: Valentina Palladino) NEW YORK—Acer has been busy, and the company showed off some of its latest work at an event in New York City today. Acer announced a slew of new laptops and PCs, many of which build upon some of its other recently released products. The Switch Alpha 12 laptop is the juiced-up version of its Aspire Switch 12 S that was announced back at CES. Instead of the Switch 12 S’s Core M processor, the Alpha 12 supports sixth-generation Core i3U, i5, and i7 processors. But Acer is pushing this device as an efficient and cool laptop above anything else. Engineers built the Switch Alpha 12 with a liquid cooling system and a fanless design. The heat created from the device powers the cooling system, keeping temperatures down. And since it lacks a fan all together, operating sounds are kept quiet. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Acer unveils a liquid-cooled laptop, simplified UI tablet for “super-seniors”
Teamviewer’s Android Remote Contol app now lets you wake up a sleeping computer, an important feature for connecting to a remote PC. Read more…
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Teamviewer for Android Adds Wake-on-LAN, SD Card Support, and More
Do you own a set-top box that you love? That’s great—keep loving it! Are you interested in seeing what all the fuss is about? Then consider the new $50 Roku Streaming Stick . It’s cheap and easy and versatile, and frankly, that’s really what you should want. Read more…
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The New Roku Streaming Stick Is All You Need
MarkWhittington writes: The EmDrive, the so-called “impossible” space drive that uses no propellant, has roiled the aerospace world for the past several years ever since it was proposed by British aerospace engineer Robert Shawyer. In essence, the claim advanced by Shawyer and others is that if you bounced microwaves in a truncated cone, thrust would be produced out the open end. Most scientists have snorted at the idea, noting correctly that such a thing would violate physical laws. However, organizations as prestigious as NASA have replicated the same results, that prototypes of the EmDrive produces thrust. How does one reconcile the experimental results with the apparent scientific impossibility? MIT Technology Review suggested a reason why. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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The ‘Impossible’ EM Drive Being Tested By NASA May Finally Be Explained
Dodging firewalls and masking your IP address usually requires firing up separate—often paid-for—software or plug-ins while you’re browsing. Now, though, Opera has its own free VPN baked right into the desktop browser. Read more…
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Opera Now Has a Totally Free and Unlimited Built-In VPN